Do you have any memories of the free-to-play 3DS eShop title, Rusty's Real Deal Baseball? It was launched exclusively in North America in 2014 and was one of the earliest games Nintendo released prior to its mobile selection, to include paid downloadable content.

The baseball mini-game compilation starred a down and out in-game shop keeper named Rusty Slugger, who sold each of the games to you. If you ever played the title, you'll know you could actually haggle the shop keeper to drive down the real-world prices of these games on the eShop. Admittedly, Rusty was a pushover, and if you ever bought a game off him, you probably got it at a much cheaper price than the $4.00 he was asking for.

What if you didn't haggle him, though? Well, recently YouTuber Nick Robinson revisited the game and tried this himself. As difficult as it was to convince Rusty he wanted to buy his games for full price, he made it happen. Paying full price essentially results in a better story for Rusty and his struggling family and you also get to meet Pappy Van Poodle, an old overweight dog with a cane who is apparently a "neighbour, businessman and mentor" to Rusty. Paying full price unlocks six additional cut scenes featuring Pappy.

What's so surprising is about this is that nobody actually appeared to know about Pappy Van Poodle. Until now, the character has never even been searched online Robinson ran the game through special software to find out more about this unknown character. His findings led to end game dialogue referencing Pappy. What's even weirder is that to see Pappy, you obviously had to avoid haggling and pay full price for each mini-game (which very few players likely did). It meant barely anyone would have known who Rusty was referencing towards the end of the game when he spoke about his beloved and trusting mentor.

Learn the full story in the video above and tell us if you knew about Pappy Van Poodle.

[source youtu.be]